Help with geometry

Hello there. Khan Academy is a good place to start. See all the content on geometry and have a 100 % mastery. Then do the 100 % mastery on the math course is currently at. 

Hi Cheryl,

Like Pablo suggested, it would be good for him to start with the Geometry course on Khan Academy, which can be accessed here: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/geometry

Khan Academy does not provide any teachers/tutors, but he is welcome to use the discussion forums under the videos to ask questions if he does not understand something! For the practice exercises, he may also find the "Get a Hint" feature helpful, as this will help guide him through problems that he may be struggling with.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any additional questions!

Hi Cheryl,

You may also want him to look at the Getting Ready for Geometry course: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/get-ready-for-geometry I've found that many students who struggle with geometry don't have a good foundation from elementary and middle school.  By finding and filling in any holes, it can help a high school student gain confidence and then build new knowledge faster and more easily.

I’m not sure whether I should be posting this here, but for kids who need a person to speak directly to, try Juni. It’s online tutoring with a good solid curriculum. Student meets with tutor once a week for an hour. Homework is assigned. The tutors are all grad students in computer science or math from the best universities around the nation. I highly recommend if you need a bit more hands on than Khan Academy. I live Khan so much. It’s amazing if the child will do it.

Hi Cheryl,

 As a high school math teacher for the last 10 years, I completely agree with you. We are stretched entirely to thinly, and your child's education, as well as all of his classmates' education have become "collateral damage". I know that may sound harsh, but we are usually either behind because of some new policy dictated from above, or we are trying to implement yet another new policy from their overseers. There are always a lot of "behind the scenes" things going on in any "normal" school year, but the last 2 have been unprecedented in the "modern" school system. I don't know how the teachers did what they had to do during the Spanish Flu pandemic of the 1920's. That would be an interesting subject to research for someone that has the time to do it.

  For us teachers, there is a daily sense of dread of "What's next?" or "How do they expect us to do this or that while that other thing is going on?", "Which contradictory rule should we follow today?', ad nauseum. I only mention all of the above because it is very difficult for us to endure that our students are learning what we are required to teach them, as well as keep our eyes wide open for academic fraud/cheating at home. But, having griped about all of that, I have never turned down a student that asked me for any help with the courses I have taught, much to the chagrin of my friends and my family. 

 So if your child can somehow explain to his teacher exactly what it is that he does not understand with a particular assignment or concept in general, then I would like to hope that they would also drop whatever it is they were doing to help him with his struggles. I have never met a teacher that wouldn't help a student that was genuinely trying to understand the material and something is just not clicking. If your child emails his teacher with specific questions about the material, rather than just saying "I don't get it.", then his teacher nine times out of ten will do their best to get it across to him. I have never met any teacher that was in it for the money and only worked from bell to bell. 

 I don't know your son's current teacher's attitude, but I genuinely think that they will be motivated by your child's willingness to ask questions about the material so that he can understand it and succeed at this level of math and beyond. We might not smile on the outside when we are asked for further explanation, but we are on the inside. Most teachers teach because they like to be there for the "Aha moment", and I hope that your child's teacher is one of the many that teach for that reason. We all know that the pay is certainly not what would motivate anyone to "burn the candle at both ends just so that others can see". ( the quote was loosely paraphrased from a Leave it to Beaver episode, believe it or not.).

  Anyway, have your son pester his teacher with questions that are relevant and can help your son's teacher help your son. Vague questions do not help us to pinpoint where they are lost or what prerequisite skill is hanging him up at this point. You can get a tutor and pay money, and it could certainly help for sure, but if you haven't made sure that his teacher can no longer help your son, then you could be throwing away good money because his teacher is ignorant of what the issue is.

 I hope that helps you somewhat. I just wanted to offer you one teacher's viewpoint, and I hope that your son can explain to his teacher where he thinks he needs help, and show his teacher that he is honestly trying his best, and that his teacher responds to him the way that I would respond to him. (I don't mean to sound cocky or pat myself on the back, or gain applause for that, because teaching is our job.)

BY the way, you can understand math, you just need to stop telling yourself that you can't. :-)

Good luck, and stay safe,

David Miller

David, I LOVE that answer!

Also, for kids who had previous issues understanding plane geometry and angles, going all the way back to the beginning (angles start in 4th grade on KA) can really help.

Thank you P Rossell! 

 You are certainly correct about kids that enter geometry, or any math class, lack a lot of the necessary prerequisite skills from all the way back to the 4th grade at least. I think that one big problem is that they don't understand that math classes are always building blocks for their next math classes.

The cycle of "memorize ->test ->forget", which a lot of students believe will work for every subject doesn't apply for math, and it shouldn't work for any other subject either, but alas...

So, maybe that will also help Cheryl's son.